The heroic neighbor who led to the rescue of four children including a hidden-away toddler and 5-month-old baby girl from a vermin-infested Blackstone home recalled the shocking discovery and how she tried to comfort the feces-and-maggot-covered children.
I never would have guessed that was going on ever, the neighbor said of the atrocities inside the house where investigators this week found the remains of three dead infants.
The 41-year-old neighbor and mother of two, who asked the Herald to withhold her name, moved to the neighborhood a year ago. About six months ago, her 13-year-old son began playing with the 10-year-old son of Erika Murray, who was arraigned yesterday in Uxbridge District Court on charges of fetal death concealment and permitting substantial injury to a child.
The woman said she met the 31-year-old Murray for the first time two weeks ago. She gave Murray her phone number and suggested they get together sometime.
Murray looked puzzled and said: I dont have any friends.
Murray asked if her son could come over the next day because she was going to the Cape.
The neighbor said yes and took the boys to lunch the next day. Later, she ran an errand while the boys played outside. But her son suddenly called her and told her, I cant get the babies to stop crying.
She had no idea what he was talking about. She only knew of Murrays son and 13-year-old daughter. She didnt know the two younger children even existed.
The woman came home and went to Murrays house. She had never been inside. She could hear the babies and asked Murrays son where they were. The boy led her inside the filthy home and upstairs and she found a 5-month-old baby girl on a bed in one room and a 3-year-old who she believed to be a boy on a bed in another room.
The children were crying, covered from head-to-toe in feces and maggots. The house was dark sheets and blankets covered the windows and stifling hot. There was no electricity or running water.
They had been left there all day, she said. Murrays boy had been at her house since 10 a.m. and it was now 4:30 p.m. I tried not to panic, the woman said.
It was the worst thing you could imagine and then it was probably a little bit worse than that, she said.
She went into the babys room first, sweetly telling her that it was going to be OK. The 3-year-old was sitting up, rocking violently on the bed. She told him to be careful, she didnt want him to hurt himself.
Then she called the cops. The dispatcher told her not to pick up the babies, so she stood in between the two rooms, comforting them. When the first cop finally arrived, she asked to pick up the baby girl and got the OK. She stepped on dirty diapers and piles of stuff she didnt know what it was to reach her. When she leaned over, the baby was excited to see her. Her nails were long, her stomach swollen. She was very cute. She liked to be held, she said. She was desperate to be held.
The woman stripped off the babys soiled clothes and took off her own tank top to clean her up. There was nothing clean in the house to wipe the baby with, she said.
The baby giggled when she played peek-a-boo and the woman told her things were going to be better. She tried to talk to the long, curly-haired 3-year-old tot, who appeared small for his age, but he didnt speak. He was soaking wet and looked afraid, his bed so soiled it sunk in the middle.
A cop asked her what was inside a door behind her in the hallway she didnt know and when he opened it, there was a horrible smell. The officer told her to put the baby down and leave. So she did.
I was scared to death, she said, and in shock.
Murray was outside. The distraught neighbor confronted Murray and asked her what she was thinking. Murray said she didnt know why she was so upset because shed only left the children for a few hours.
Later, the woman said her son told her he had washed maggots out of the babys bottle earlier that day.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinio..._neighbor_on_blackstone_horror_i_tried_not_to
The neighbors account was so disturbing and heartbreaking. Bless that woman. I hope she knows she saved those children's lives. They were, after all just being "babysat" by Murray. This makes me think the jig was up and eventually they were destined to go away like the dead infants. How long can one "babysit" a fictitious person's children before a boyfriend asks when they are returning to the own mother? Those children would have been dead very soon had that woman not intervened.
